Daddy Was a Number Runner (31 page)

—Barbara Christian, professor, African American studies, University of California, Berkeley

“It has always been my contention that the Black woman in America will write the greatest of the American novels. For it is the Black woman, forced to survive at the bottom rung of American society,…who is compelled to survey, by the very extremity of her existence, the depths of the American soul. In reading Sarah Wright's searing novel, I am convinced that my assessment was correct.”

— Rosa Guy

eISBN: 9781558617261 | ISBN: 9781558613973

Reena and Other Stories

Paule Marshall

This collection of short works illustrates the growth of a remarkable writer. Opening the volume is the much-acclaimed autobiographical essay, “From the Poets in the Kitchen,” which pays homage to the hard-working, storytelling West Indian women who serve as her muses—women who fought back against oppression and invisibility using the only weapon at their command: the spoken word. Such women appear in her luminous short stories, which travel from Brooklyn to Barbados and back again.

“The stories collected here are stories of transcendence and continuity. Paule Marshall's characters battle the twin oppressions of sexism and racism, and it is the self that emerges as the ultimate source of strength. Marshall attests to the maxim and the will to power over circumstance is, for the black woman, the will to write.”

— Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor of English and chairperson of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University, and author of
Colored People

“Black women are shown in Marshall's stories creating the power to define their lives. Reading these stories is both a political act and a great joy.”

—Mary Helen Washington, professor of English, University of Maryland, College Park, and editor of
Black-Eyed Susans

“Readers familiar with Marshall's novels,
Brown Girl, Brownstones
;
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People
; and
Praisesong for the Widow
, will welcome this collection of her early short fiction. Those who have yet to make Marshall's acquaintance have an enormous treat in store.”

—
Publishers Weekly

ISBN: 9780935312249

Brown Girl, Brownstones

Paule Marshall

Now including a new foreword by the prolific Haitian author Edwidge Danticat,
Brown Girl, Brownstones
is the work of one of America's finest contemporary black women writers. Set in Brooklyn during the Depression and World War II, it chronicles the efforts of Barbadian immigrants to surmount poverty and racism and to make their new country home. Selina Boyce, the novel's memorable heroine, is conflicted by the opposing aspirations of her parents: her hard-working, ambitious mother longs to buy a brownstone row house while her easygoing father prefers to dream of effortless success and his native island's lushness. Eventually, in this coming-of-age story, Selina must forge her own identity, sexuality, and sense of values in her new country and reconcile group tradition with individual potential.

The new foreword written by highly acclaimed author Danticat examines Selina's passionate quest for wholeness of identity: “When dreams collide rather than merge, forcing both family members and the community to take sides until one type of dreamer is applauded and the other shunned . . . a showdown is imminent.” With themes of multi-ethnic racism, immigration, loyalty, and loss at the forefront, this powerful and poetic exploration is as relevant today as it was in its debut.

“Remarkable for its colorful characters, the cadence of its dialogue and its evocation of a still-lingering past.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“Marshall brings to her characters . . . an instinctive understanding, a generosity and free humor that combine to form a style remarkable for its courage, its color, and its natural control.”

—
New Yorker

“An unforgettable novel written with pride and anger, with rebellion and tears.”

—
New York Herald Tribune

ISBN: 9781558614987

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing

Zora Neale Hurston

Known for her audacity an inimitable style, Zora Neale Hurston is widely acknowledged as the forerunner for writers such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. This anthology draws together superb selections from her essays, short stories, journalism, folklore, and autobiography.

“One of the greatest writers of our time.”

— Toni Morrison

“This well-made collection of her work . . . should give momentum to the rediscovery of Hurston as ‘the intellectual and spiritual foremother of a generation of black women writers.'”

—
Washington Post Book Review

ISBN: 9780912670669

Still Brave

Edited by Stanlie M. James, Frances Smith Foster & Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Cheryl Clarke, Angela Davis, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker—from the pioneers of black women's studies comes
Still Brave
, the definitive collection of race and gender writings today. Including Alice Walker's groundbreaking elucidation of the term “womanist,” discussions of women's rights as human rights, and a piece on the Obama factor, the collection speaks to the ways that feminism has evolved and how black women have confronted racism within it.

“
Still Brave
is a monumental book that reminds us of the centrality of Black Womanist genius and talent grounded in courage and struggle. We can never understand what it means to be modern, new world, or African without this precious volume.”

— Cornel West, professor, Princeton University

“To hold
Still Brave
in your hands is to hold a courageous, beautiful history of global importance. Black feminism and Black Women's Studies are monumental achievements.
Still Brave
shows why.”

— Catharine R. Stimpson, professor and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University

“Faculty and students at all levels of higher education; community activists; policymakers; and those just plain curious to read the very best scholarship on race and gender from the past 25 years will welcome the publication of this volume. James, Foster, and Guy-Sheftall have put together a political, creative, truly interdisciplinary anthology. They have crafted a narrative of Black Women's Studies over the past twenty-five years that will sustain the field in the twenty-first century. They are to be congratulated.”

— Claire G. Moses, editorial director,
Feminist Studies
; professor of women's studies, University of Maryland

“Radiant with intellectual energy, this sequel to
Some of Us Were Brave
will be as indispensable to women's studies scholars of every race, age, ethnicity, and theoretical orientation as its precursor was. The writers whose classic and contemporary essays are collected here address an exhilarating range of multidisciplinary and multicultural issues, from religion to sexuality to the history of Black feminist criticism—including a closing riff on the Obama daughters and Pecola Breedlove—with verve, wit, passion, and sophistication.”

— Sandra M. Gilbert, Distinguished Professor of English Emerita, University of California, Davis

“In short [
Still Brave
] is courageous, necessary, and exquisitely edited. It is a true testament to the scholar to which it is dedicated.”

— Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African American Studies, Princeton University

“
Still Brave
is among the most important collections of writings to date.”

—
ForeWord

ISBN: 9781558616110